Thursday, March 1, 2018

PAW PAC celebrates Democratic women candidates

The Progressive Arkansas Women PAC celebrated Democratic candidates on the steps of the state Capitol today at the close of filing for the 2018 elections, with Secretary of State candidate Susan Inman asking, "If not us, who? If not now, when?"

Twenty-six Democratic women are seeking office at the statewide level, and only four of those are incumbents. The women are trying to unseat such unsavory Republican incumbents as I'm-more-Christian-than-you Sen. Jason Rapert (Maureen Skinner of Conway), keep-’em-barefoot, pregnant-and-heterosexual Sen. Kim Hammer (Melissa Fults of Hensley), guns-everywhere-and-at-all-times Rep. Charlie Collins (Denise Garner of Fayetteville), Mr.-"judicial-overreach" Rep. Mark Lowery (Monica Ball of Maumelle), tax-the-poor-not-the-rich Rep. Jim Sorvillo (Jess Mallett ofLittle Rock) and ... well, one could go on, but we don't have all day.

One candidate, Teresa Gallegos, filed last year as the Democratic candidate to face the winner of a March 13 Republican special primary for Senate District 16. That election is May 22.

PAW PAC was created two years ago to recruit and train women candidates with progressive stands on health care, education, economics and women's rights. In 2016, it backed 12 candidates. It's endorsing 22 this year. The total number of women candidates was a record this year.

P.S.: Almost forgot: The PAW PAC, in noting women's entry into down-ballot races, introduced the candidate for coroner in Sebastian County. She's got a great name for the job: Leah Livengood.

It's Third Friday Art Walk in Argenta, and it's beautiful outdoors. So go.

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the National Park Service will award a $499,668 improvement grant to Dreamland Ballroom in the historic Taborian Hall building at Ninth and State streets, now the home of Little Rock Flag and Banner.

When you're busy cutting the federal budget to the bone so that folks wealthier than God don't have to contribute to the Treasury, no program is too small to ax, right?

Readers also liked…

John Goodson — the Texarkana attorney, D.C. lobbyist, and husband of Arkansas State Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson — was reprimanded today by a federal judge for his conduct in a class-action case.

We take a visit to the weekly hot check court in Sherwood District Court, the subject of a recent civil rights lawsuit filed by ACLU Arkansas and others, who say the system there results in a modern-day debtor's prison

John Walker, the 79-year-old civil rights lawyer, and his associate, Omavi Shukur, 29, a young lawyer devoted to criminal justice reform, talked to press this afternoon about their arrests Monday by Little Rock police for supposedly obstructing governmental operations in observing and attempting to film a routine police traffic stop. It was a tutorial on sharp views of race, class and governance in Little Rock.

by Max Brantley

Sep 29, 2016

Most Shared

A federal prosecutor in Missouri said Friday that a former legislator, Henry Wilkins IV of Pine Bluff, had said he'd received $100,000 in bribes as a state legislator from indicted former lobbyist Rusty Cranford. He was not alone on an illicit dole.

On Wednesday, both chambers of the Arkansas legislature approved identical versions of a bill to regulate pharmacy benefit managers, the powerful health care companies at the center of a dispute over cuts in reimbursements paid to pharmacists.